Openness to messages about English as a foreign language: Working with learners to uncover purpose to study

I Introduction

Around the world, English is increasingly positioned as a basic educational skill (Graddol, 2006). Influenced by such discourses, those studying English as a foreign language (EFL) may have beliefs about the expectations from others for their English abilities (Sampson, 2015). Yet, as a compulsory classroom subject in an environment in which it is rarely used, English might seem to have little connection to students’ present or future lives. There may be a disconnect between encounters with circulating messages about English, and experiences which show students few opportunities to use English day-to-day.

This article presents understandings that evolved through an action research project with undergraduate EFL students in Japan. The study encouraged learners to reflect on and share absorbed ideas about ‘English’ that they brought into the classroom. Aligning with calls for practitioner action research to be accessible and meaningful to professionals in similar contexts of practice (Burns, 2010), the article takes a narrative form: I combine descriptions of the action research processes, interactions with literature, and discussion of findings. The article illuminates students’ perceptions of messages about English, and also how teachers can help learners explore these ideas and discover purpose to their studies.

II Beginnings

As I looked over the analysis, I began to get excited. Teaching compulsory EFL courses with first-year undergraduate science and technology students in Japan, I had wanted to gain insights into the ways in which these people might likely be using English occupationally in their futures. As a first step, I had conducted a needs analysis with companies participating in a job fair at my university (Sampson, 2017a). Results revealed that 88 percent of these companies recognized some relation with business outside Japan. Most also reported a range of practical forms in which employees used English. These results were not particularly unexpected: similar needs for English in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) occupations in Japan are forthcoming in the literature (e.g. Hill, 2013; Kaneko, Rozycki & Orr, 2009). Yet, with the new academic year rapidly approaching, my elation as I looked over the analysis alerted me to the importance of these findings for myself as a teacher also: They seemed to offer some justification for students’ required English studies. I could act in congruence with self-values which stressed to me the need to make learning relevant, and feel authenticity in what I was doing with learners.

Armed with this newfound confidence in the purpose of my teaching role, the academic year commenced. As I got to know the new cohort, I grew interested in students’ own predictions of a future with English. And it was here that my castle of belief came crashing to a pile of rubble. These students had entered into a course of study aimed at preparing them for employment in STEM careers. Yet, in stark contrast to the expectations of companies, learners seemed to make no connection to the role that English might play in their future as technologists (see Sampson, 2017a). As a classroom teacher, I was staggered by this apparent gap. What messages about the purpose and instrumentality of English study towards students’ likely futures had (or, had not) filtered through to them?

III Interactions with the literature: Societal messages about English

English is still very much a foreign language in Japan, with no substantial use in everyday life and relatively little interaction with global English-speaker popular culture by young people (Ryan, 2009). Japanese commonly have their first and most continuous engagement with English in formal education. Thus, prevailing pedagogical practices have the potential to influence people’s ideas about English. In Japan, compulsory education finishes after junior-high school (around the age of 15 years). However, most of the population (98 percent) continues to senior-high school, and 50 percent to university (Sugimoto, 2010). The keys to entering these stages of education are high-stakes entrance exams. As a result, scholars note that for many in Japan, English is widely perceived as something necessary purely for examinations (Goto-Butler & Iino, 2005; Kikuchi & Browne, 2009; Ryan, 2008). In one sense, the education system conveys the message that English is for testing, developing as a ‘shared national experience’ (Ryan, 2008, p. 40).

Another major discourse in Japan concerns what is to be recognized as ‘English’. One of the most vocal commentators on discourses of English in Japan, Kubota (1998), calls attention to a lack of critical appraisal of educational and societal messages that idealize ‘native-speaker’ American and British English. Yano (2011) likewise laments that ‘[Japanese people] aim at the impossible dream of acquiring ‘native-like’ or ‘near-native’ proficiency’ due to what he finds is ‘the commonly held idea, which is implanted deep in their minds, that only native speaker English is genuine’ (p. 133). Such ideas also emerged in a study by Seargeant (2009). Seargeant found English to be widely visible in Japanese people’s daily lives, such as on signs, designs on clothing, television, in Japanese pop songs, and as loan-words in the Japanese lexicon. Nevertheless, results of a survey and interviews with Japanese representing a cross-section of society uncovered that participants did not recognize these instances as English. These findings led Seargeant (2009) to interpret that participants had absorbed a message of the disjuncture between so-called ‘native English / native English culture’ and other varieties, which they did not classify as English (pp. 137–141).

The importance of English for future aspirations is also the focus of a prevalent group of messages. Seargeant’s (2009) study additionally explored messages rife in the Japanese English language education media, such as advertisements for private English conversation schools and English study magazines. He found that these organizations position English as the key to change in people’s lives, sending messages of ‘mobility within the job market’ and ‘benefits in terms of social or personal relations’ (p. 120). This discourse is also commonly connected with globalization. A study by Matsuda (2011) with Japanese students in their final year of senior-high school uncovered many who had drawn in messages that English is important as a lingua franca to access information and communicate with people from various parts of the world. Such discourses are promulgated by the Japanese government through press releases, popular culture, as well as English education institutions and universities as messages of ‘globalization-as-opportunity’ (Yamagami & Tollefson, 2011). Focusing especially on university promotional material, Yamagami and Tollefson (2011) found remarkably similar messages across institutions, usually stressing that today’s students ‘will work for international companies, … will travel and work outside of Japan, and … interact with individuals who are not Japanese’ (p. 24). Other research also hints at this message of the importance of English for occupations in Japan. Through large-scale data-sets, Terasawa (2015) found that up to 40 percent of his participants believed that English was necessary for work, even though those who related actual use of English amounted to only 15 percent.

In my context, the company data I had collected implied that at some point a likely future for my students would see many of them using English occupationally. Yet, despite the apparent abundance of societal messages regarding English (especially those concerning the supposed importance of English for future opportunities), these learners did not yet seem to have developed ideas of themselves working using English. Based on my questions at the time, I decided to commence an action research project that would allow learners to give voice to their own perceptions of messages about English and encourage them to make a connection between their future and their studies.

IV Introducing action research

Action research aims to understand social phenomena via deliberate perturbation of the existing status quo (Burns, 2010). It incorporates a number of research cycles (Lewin, 1948). Commonly, a cycle commences with questions about some challenging, localized issue that those within the social group wish to explore. ‘Change-action’ is then introduced, involving intervention beyond regular practice intended to deepen understandings. Change-action is also designed to foster more beneficial outcomes, as perceived by participants in the social group (Burns, 2010). The collection of data aims to further understandings about the original questions, as well as suggesting additional areas for exploration in potential subsequent cycles. My experiences using practitioner action research have encouraged a view in which an initial cycle may lead to multiple concurrent spirals as the research heads in varied directions.

The study was instigated at a regional university in Japan. Data were collected from 48 Japanese science and technology students in two of my first-year, compulsory English listening/speaking classes. The groups were selected out of convenience, as practitioner action research is located in a social group of which the researcher is also part. As measured by standardized test, student English ability levels equated to approximately 400 to 750 points on the TOEIC. (TOEIC is a test of English language skills for business, administered by Educational Testing Service.)

V Cycle 1: Introducing change-action activities to describe perceived messages about English

On the one hand, I wanted to respect students as real people with their own predictions for English use. Learners had overwhelmingly mentioned hopes to use English for sightseeing abroad, communicating in everyday life, friendship, hobbies and pastimes. These ideas prompted me to introduce change-action activities connecting to students’ transportable identities (Ushioda, 2011) in a coincident spiral of the research (see Sampson, 2017b). On the other hand, I perceived an alarming gap between company and student ideas of English use. This discrepancy encouraged me to initiate change-action to investigate how absorbed messages about English might be made explicit and shared amongst learners. I hoped that such activities would allow participants to uncover for themselves the relevance of English studies to their specialization in STEM at university. This spiral of the action research employed the following questions:

For cycle one, I constructed a worksheet – Describing Messages – that asked students to write freely concerning messages they perceived about English, when and from where they perceived the message, and how it made them feel. Students wrote in English for 10 minutes at the end of one lesson, finishing the task for homework. In the next lesson they mingled, sharing ideas. When they found a similarity with another student, they wrote on a Post-It, and stuck it to a section of the classroom wall. Finally, learners filed past the collected information, reading ideas shared across the class group. As part of my regular teaching practice, I kept a teacher journal recording observations and questions arising from my experiences in lessons (and later in interaction with the collected data). I took photographs of a large collection of colorful Post-Its adorning the wall, and I noted in my teacher journal that students seemed highly engaged as they were comparing ideas. I also wanted to collect students’ perceptions of the activity such that I could gain insights to changes in their understandings which might suggest additional opportunities for change-action activities. I asked participants to write a regular ‘Learning Report’, a kind of diary about their experiences. In the past I had used paper-based materials. However, from a practical point of view, paper-based journals had significant drawbacks in an action research design: Asking students to write in-lesson, collecting the journals, interpreting learners’ handwriting, inputting data to a digital form, and analysing the data all before the following lesson such that students could use their journals again led to a very rushed process. In order to address these concerns, I decided to try using email. At the end of each lesson I asked students to send me an email of at least 70 English words reflecting on their experiences by midnight of the lesson day.

Representative of the open nature of the language learning classroom, students were more than capable of writing perceptions of messages about English carried with them. Across the two class groups, learners contributed a total of 146 perceived messages, for an average of just over three per student. Although I obtained a general impression of ideas that students had written as they were mingling, I eagerly entered their data into NVivo. Data were initially coded to the four areas of message content, when, from where, and feeling. These categories were then examined independently. While the areas of when, from where and feeling lent themselves to relatively straightforward descriptive coding, I continued to a more interpretive coding of message content. A first pass through the data elicited numerous codes as I looked for repetitions and regularities across texts (Ryan & Bernard, 2003). I then delved into these codes, uncovering and noting the fundamental qualities of each in research memos. There was then an iterative process of further examining these codes and my interpretations in the memos to gather codes together under conceptual categories (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013). The content of messages broke down into two overarching categories, with a variety of lower level codes (Figure 1). In what follows, student ideas are quoted unedited and all learner names are pseudonyms.

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Figure 1.

Tree diagram of categories for content of messages about English perceived by learners.

Considering that English plays little role in the lives of many Japanese besides being a subject in schooling (Kubota, 1998; Ryan, 2009; Terasawa, 2015), it is perhaps not surprising that one large group of messages related to what I termed study dogma. Some of these messages simply concerned advice for supposedly more effective study, such as ‘Speaking English in English class is very important for your learning’; ‘If you don’t read English few days, you become to be unable to read faster.’ Over half of this study advice also however reflected the societal discourse appertaining to English as a subject for examination to progress to the next stage of education (e.g. Kikuchi & Browne, 2009; Ryan, 2008), reducing it to a puzzle for a score: ‘If you can’t solve English, you’ll fail entrance exam’; ‘Memorize means of words, grammar and listen to English everyday to score on the exam.’ Another group of study-related messages connected to the effort required to acquire English language skills: the ease or difficulty, or time necessary: ‘It takes a long time till you can understand English’; ‘In fact, English is not so difficult’ (I will return to messages about the ‘ease’ of English study in the following section as I discuss the introduction of new change-action activities). A final group of messages dealt with seeming excuses for a lack of English proficiency in the Japanese populace, or what I phrased as ‘the Japanese dilemma’: ‘The way of English education in Japan is not right’; ‘Japanese couldn’t speak English for a long time.’

In alignment with the ideas of students in Matsuda’s (2011) study, a second overarching category revolved around messages of the importance of English. One key aspect was the alleged role of English as an international language: ‘English is a common language all of the world’; ‘The population of speaking English is many times larger than that of speaking Japanese.’ Other messages bespoke of the role of English in the future lives of young people: ‘Studying English is important for the future’; ‘Learning English will be very useful.’ In light of the fact that one of the purposes of introducing this change-action activity was the hope that it might encourage learners to make a connection between their English studies and future occupation, I was pleased that there were also a number of messages about work: ‘If you want to be a scientist, you must study English’; ‘If you speak English, you can find the job.’

Although rushed for time amidst my other teaching, I was also able to use the Boolean search function of NVivo to investigate patterns to the ways in which messages connected to certain sources, times of participants’ lives, and motivation/affect. Figures 2 and 3 present graphs of the locus of messages, and when students encountered them.

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Figure 2.

Number of references to locus of perceived messages by category.

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Figure 3.

Comparison of number of references by locus of message and time of life.

In the past experiences of my learners, encounters with messages about English clearly position it as a classroom subject: Over half of the references were connected to either teachers in formal education contexts or cram schools. Put simply, the data implies that this flood of input from teachers dwarfs the number of perceived messages from other sources. Not surprisingly, as English study became increasingly important to enter the next stage of education, the number of messages from teachers appears to increase exponentially. (As these periods of life are temporally proximal to the time of data collection, it might also be that it was simply easier for participants to recollect these messages). The content of messages perceived from teachers was relatively evenly spread between a focus on the importance of English, and study dogma. The affect and motivation that students attached to these messages was also relatively balanced. Forty-two percent noted agreement, positive affect or want (motivation) connected to messages from teachers about the necessity or usefulness of English in the future. Forty-four percent however reported disagreement, negative affect, or pressure also stemming from information about the need for English, as well as messages proclaiming the ease of English acquisition.

Grouped together, the next largest source of messages was from family members and friends/peers. In line with past research that uncovered little perception of expectations from family members about English abilities (Sampson, 2015), the number of these messages was far fewer than those sourced from the education context. Participants noted more messages from family members than those from friends and peers until they entered university, as they moved away from home in many cases. Across their lives, input from friends and peers was overwhelmingly concerned with the difficulty of studying English. In some cases this elicited feelings of agreement, while others disagreed with their peers. Conversely, information from family members revolved around the importance of English, with students who heard these messages agreeing and describing increased motivation to study.

The smallest number of messages concerned those from society in general or the media. Over 60 percent of these messages preached the importance of English and that students will need it in the future, with another 30 percent connected to English being used around the world. Although most references to messages from society and the media saw students noting agreement with the information, in a significant number of cases (33%) these messages also evoked feelings of pressure and negative affect. Moreover, a number of students wrote that they perceived these messages as a constant in their lives.

VI Interactions with the literature: Importance, self-efficacy, and mindsets about learning

In the everyday lives of these young Japanese people, the collected data suggested that educational contexts have a determining influence on the kinds of messages about English that learners encounter and bring with them into the classroom. As a fellow teacher, my reading of the data at this time therefore caused me unease. Considering my aim of assisting learners to make a connection between English and professional studies, the first cycle of the action research had encouraged a good many students to recollect messages of the importance of English. Yet, the majority were extremely vague as to at what point in the future, and in what capacity, English might be important. Similarly, some of the messages of importance clashed with my own understandings of English language learning. Without mentioning discourses of globalization or aspiration (Seargeant, 2009; Yamagami & Tollefson, 2011) directly, some messages clearly implied that English skills would allow access to ‘all of the world’. As any experienced traveler knows, it is certainly not the case that English unequivocally provides a useful tool for communication in every situation. Moreover, English is not the only lingua franca, nor can it fully replace the advantages of localized language skills in international communication (see, for example, Graddol, 2006; Kubota, 2013).

Another troubling group of messages declared the ease of acquiring English. These messages frequently compared English with Japanese: ‘Learning English is easier than learning Japanese.’ Besides being nonsensical for people who have already acquired Japanese as their first language, such messages have the potential to be devastating motivationally. In developing self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1986) – perceptions of our capabilities to undertake particular tasks – we draw not only on interpretations of previous performance, but also on observation and social persuasions from others (Bandura, 1997). A message that ‘English is easy’ when one’s own experiences or observations of others suggest otherwise can lead to damaging self-efficacy beliefs; for example, ‘This is supposed to be easy, yet I can’t do it.’ What was moreover unfortunate from my perspective was that while peers espoused messages of the difficulty of studying English, messages of supposed ease were almost entirely sourced from teachers.

Lastly, as part of messages that I categorized as opining ‘the Japanese dilemma’, there were those that suggested the only way to progress in English language skills is to leave Japan. Based on my experiences as both language learner and teacher, I am well aware that overseas language study offers certain opportunities difficult to encounter outside the focal-language context. However, such messages reinforce a mindset that advanced English study must occur overseas, separately from regular study within Japan. These mindsets have negative consequences, in that ‘a strong belief in language learning as a natural process that is best achieved abroad situates the learner as a passive vessel absorbing language rather than as an active agent’ (Ryan & Mercer, 2011, p. 170).

My concerns about these messages prompted me to reintroduce them to the student groups for discussion. I anticipated that such interaction could prove beneficial to further encouraging participants to critically explore their own beliefs about both the process and purpose of their English studies.

VII Cycle 2: Introducing change-action activities to explore perceived messages about English

In a lesson a couple of weeks later, I randomly assigned students to groups of four. I told them that they would see some of the messages about English collected from the class groups in summarized form. I then gave each group a sheet – Exploring Messages – listing the following four sentences:

Students were prompted to discuss each message in their group, coming to a negotiated opinion about whether they agreed or disagreed, and reasons for this opinion. To be completely honest, as groups discussed and wrote their opinions I was a little disappointed and wondered whether I ought not to have conducted the activity. Although members participated, there was a subdued atmosphere. Perhaps it was too confronting to openly discuss such ideas? Nevertheless, I wanted to give students some outcome to their group-work and share ideas across the class. I asked each group to announce their opinions, before I also commented with my own perspectives. As with the previous change-action activity, I finally encouraged students to reflect on the activity in their Learning Report email.

Once again I analysed the collected data using NVivo. Taking each of the reintroduced messages in turn: Groups almost completely noted agreement with the idea that ‘English is important.’ The most prevalent reason for concurring is represented by the in vivo code ‘Many people, many countries’: ‘You can talk to the people who live in all of the world.’ Close in number were reasons connected to work. Although some of these reasons had become more concrete in mentioning specific details or situations – ‘Sometimes we need to talk with foreigner in English on the job’ – the majority were still rather vague: ‘When we find the job, English skill is very useful.’ Across the two classes, there were only four students who conditionally disagreed, with the understandable stance that ‘Maybe it’s important. It depends on your job and future.’

The second message compared the ease of learning English favorably with that of learning Japanese. Rather shockingly from my perspective, two thirds of groups agreed. Students cited the smaller number of characters in the English alphabet: ‘English is only 26 characters’; ‘Japanese has hiragana, katakana and kanji.’ Those who disagreed however called out the nonsensical nature of such a message for Japanese people: ‘We don’t know this idea because we are Japanese. People except for Japanese may think so.’

At first, results concerning the third message caused me to despair as a classroom EFL teacher in Japan. There seemed to be a great deal of agreement that study abroad would facilitate the automatic acquisition of English language ability. However, whether groups agreed or disagreed, it appeared that the discussion prompted students to realize the qualified nature of this message. While they noted that the overseas environment would provide greater chances for language input, students also recognized the need to be agentic: ‘When we go overseas, we can hear only English. But we need to talk with others positively.’

The final message contended that ‘English is spoken all around the world.’ It also met with almost total agreement. The reasons for this opinion predominantly revolved around English being the lingua franca: ‘English is the common international language.’ Although far less subscribed, some groups also made connections to fellow EFL learners in agreeing: ‘Many people study English like us. Even if their mother language isn’t English.’ Conversely, a handful of groups picked up on the falsehood of contending that English is used everywhere: ‘No. For example, in Japan, some people don’t need to use English and cannot speak English’; ‘Not everyone speaks English, but many people speaks.’

VIII Interactions with the literature: The need for a plausible image

While different opinions came out of the Exploring Messages activity, I was pleased that it had offered students an opportunity to hear various ideas from their group members, other groups and my own perspectives. I was perturbed that many students remained convinced by messages that English is easier to learn than Japanese, and is used all around the world. Nevertheless, in each class at least one group had announced ideas of the nonsensical or false nature of these messages. I was also relieved that discussion of study abroad had drawn attention to the need for proactive effort in language studies, whatever the context.

At this point, however, I decided to focus this spiral of the action research back on its original aim. Exploration of the reintroduced messages had prompted many students to recognize the instrumental importance of English study for their future professional identities. Yet these images remained obscure. Previous research has found that dictated social values about the importance of becoming proficient in English for future professional success can have a large impact on science and engineering students’ motivation (Hill, Falout & Apple, 2013). However, as these authors also argue, there is a need for undergraduate STEM education in Japan that ‘helps [learners] to connect the social values of English with their professional and personal identities as users of the language’ (Hill et al., 2013, p. 216).

The classroom can play an indispensible role in fostering such a connection through providing information about a possible future life domain. Research by Ueki and Takeuchi (2013) found that encounters with information regarding future possibilities with an additional language affected learners’ capacity to build images of using the language in the future. Based on the results, they concluded that ‘providing information related to what L2 learners want to be … mediates what they feel they are able to become (self-efficacy)’ (Ueki & Takeuchi, 2013, p. 39). Again suggesting the benefits of increasing plausibility, Johnson (2013) found that motivation towards EFL study of Japanese engineering undergraduates increased from first to second year precisely because students had a clearer understanding of the necessity of English for their rapidly approaching future professional careers.

Near peer role models (NPRM) may also assist language learners to develop a more plausible image of a future English-using identity. These people are those who share vital similarities to ourselves in some ways, such as having a similar cultural background, being close in age, and possibly sharing common interests or identities (Murphey & Arano, 2001). Rather than aiming for the ‘impossible dream’ (Yano, 2011) of native-speaker competence, Murphey (1998) argues that language learning NPRMs are ‘perhaps more psychologically attractive to us in that their excellence seems more possible to see and replicate because they are in some ways already very similar to us’ (pp. 201–202). In Japan, a range of research conducted by Murphey and associates (for discussion, see Murphey, 1998; Murphey & Arano, 2001) has found that students’ language learning beliefs and behaviors in the classroom changed constructively after viewing videos of slightly older peers speaking successfully in English about their own language learning beliefs.

Through the previous change-action activities, analysis revealed a developing recognition of the importance of English studies for learners’ likely professional futures. Students’ responses spurred me to introduce activities aimed at fostering more concrete and expanded ideas of future possibilities.

IX Cycle 3: Introducing change-action activities to expand messages about English

Burns (2010) proposes that in educational action research teachers can be creative in blending change-action activities with regular curriculum content. The two activities I initiated therefore involved listening/speaking skills that we happened to be studying in the textbook at those times. In the first of these – STEM English – I decided to create an opportunity for learners to think about and add detail to their ideas of using English for future occupations. In pairs, students were given a list of 11 ways in which companies from the original industry survey (Sampson, 2017a) noted practical use of English by their employees. Pairs then discussed together to predict the order of these needs from the greatest to least number of companies. Finally, I read aloud a description of the actual results. Students listened, checked their predictions, and wrote in the percentage of companies that used English in a particular way. As usual, learners also wrote an email reflection about the activity as part of their Learning Report. My impression was that students listened far more intently than when we did regular textbook listening materials. However, in both classes I was deflated by the atmosphere after the listening task. As I noted rather colorfully in my teacher journal: ‘Afterwards there was shell-shocked silence … It’s really odd the way, both yesterday and today, [this activity] seemed to sap all energy out of the universe. Is this idea that companies have expectations for [students’] English still just too far away from them at present?’

Nevertheless (or perhaps because of these impressions), I introduced a second activity drawing on near peer role models (NPRM video). Illustrating the serendipitous nature of developments in practitioner action research, as I was having coffee one weekend with an ex-student (then in his last year of doctoral studies in chemistry at another university), I thought that it may be beneficial for my current students to hear some of his experiences. He graciously agreed for me to record an impromptu interview in English, which I then edited down to a 4-minute video. He touched upon topics such as his current and future ideas of English use, experience overseas, and varieties of English. As my classes had been studying note-taking, the video offered an authentic opportunity for learners to test out their skills listening about a topic that I hoped would be of interest. Before watching the video, I explained a little about my relationship to the speaker, and showed students the list of topics about which he would talk. Learners used these as an initial framework for their notes. After listening, I urged them to compare notes in pairs and also discuss impressions of the ideas they had heard. While pairs did interact, I was disappointed that when I then asked for some students to share their reflections, only a few from each class volunteered. I hoped that their perceptions written in Learning Report emails might give some more insight into the usefulness (or not) of change-action activities.

X Reflecting on change-action activities

The previous sections presented a narrative of this spiral of the action research and my thinking at those times. This section explores in more detail learners’ reflections on the activities. Naturally, as part of each action research cycle, I conducted an initial analysis of students’ email Learning Report entries. However, I present my interpretations here, as a re-examination of analysis suggested certain shared qualities to students’ reflections across activities.

One of the key lessons for myself over the course of the research was that I ought not to rush to conclusions about activities based on initial perceptions. As the narrative illustrated, I was sometimes disappointed with the reactions of students directly after activities. However, analysis revealed that far from being disinterested, the new thinking prompted by change-action activities required time to process. As the following extract hints, this was frequently an emotionally charged exercise (all extracts taken from student Learning Reports):

When I watched the video, I was confused a little … I felt that my future came to reality suddenly until watching it. Although it was very short, it had too much information for me. So it was difficult explain how I felt soon after watching it. Maybe I seemed unusual for you. This is why I was quiet. (I couldn’t raise my hand because I didn’t know what I thought.) After today’s class, I summed up my opinion. ‘I was confused because I didn’t know many things about mechanics. I’m running to my dream with many ideals and few reality.’ (Shogo, NPRM video)

As Shogo’s reflections eloquently reveal, and as the analysis of absorbed messages about English hinted, transitioning from senior-high school to university, learners often appeared to bring to the classroom ‘many ideals and few reality’. In support of Ueki and Takeuchi’s (2013) findings that information is crucial to developing ideas of a potential future, change-action activities provided opportunity for participants to compare previous experiences and understandings with new input:

For someone like me, for whom the purpose of study was almost completely for exams, it’s really important to have a new goal, so I’m glad that I could hear today’s information. (Koji, STEM English)

When I heard what [the NPRM] said, I feel English is not essential for our lives because we could live without using English, but English maked [the speaker’s] life better. So through English, we can communicate with more people than we can speak only Japanese. (Shin, NPRM video)

The idea of English for entrance exams becomes an overwhelming reality for many in secondary schooling in Japan (see, for example, Kikuchi & Browne, 2009). Students do not leave such past experiences at the door when they enter the tertiary classroom. Koji’s reflections exemplify the way that activities prompted learners to explore their dynamically changing understandings and develop a new purpose to English study through the introduction of information. In the second extract, Shin makes an important realization as his previous understandings interacted with the input he received from the NPRM. The experience helped him to question the indispensible requirement that many messages proclaim English to be, and instead realize that English abilities might be useful towards opening up possibilities. Although a seemingly minor difference, such recognition of possibility rather than compulsion can also have important motivational resonance (Hill et al., 2013; Ushioda, 2011).

Particularly for the change-action activities of describing and exploring messages about English, sharing of information and understandings amongst participants seemed to be a valuable quality of the activities. Students were naturally inquisitive to compare their understandings of the continual bombardment of messages about English with classmates from different parts of Japan. As the following extract moreover attests, this sharing of ideas also appeared to provide an important function in helping learners to take stock of messages and adjust their understandings through the new input:

I think English messages were often similar. For example, ‘English is common language, English is important for future.’ When I was said it, I couldn’t understand. But, I’m the same idea now. It was the good chance to confirm that English is important for us. I had to study English …!! (Sae, Describing Messages)

The STEM English and NPRM video activities served an additional role in adding clarity and plausibility to ideas about the likelihood of using English in the future connected to students’ major studies:

Up until now, the way that I’d been thinking of the importance of English was quite abstract, and somehow difficult to imagine. Through thinking about the actual kinds of situations which I might use English in a concrete way, and putting an order to them, I could finally think it has some connection with me. (Yu, STEM English)

And our class watched ‘interview’. [The interviewee’s college] is one of famous research laboratory about Biological Science in Japan. I want to study Bioinformatics, so I watched the interview very interestingly. The institute seems to eager for international research. I thought it’s fascinating idea. I wish I could build international research team for analysing the human genome someday. (Akihito, NPRM video)

Based on their large-scale survey study, Hill et al. (2013) argued that there is a need for science and engineering education in Japan that assists learners to connect dictated social values about the importance of English to a future identity using English. Yu’s reflections above provide insight into the ways that activities encouraged students to make such a connection. While the initial change-action activity allowed him a space to recollect messages of the importance of English, this discourse remained abstract. The addition of concrete data from the industry survey in the STEM English activity gave him the chance to ‘think about the actual kinds of situations which I might use English.’ Through this gradual process, students became able to ‘finally think it has some connection with me.’ The second extract illustrates a further dimension of the motivating connections enabled by the NPRM video. One of the powerful qualities of NPRMs is that they share some fundamental similarities with the mentored (Murphey & Arao, 2001). Analysis showed that the NPRM encouraged students to add detail to imagining of future possibilities through similarities of age and culture, but most importantly, academic major. The academic context meant that participant identities as students were instantiated, and they projected out of the current classroom environment: This was a person they could be in just a few years.

Probably the most prevalent theme that I interpreted from students’ reflections was the way in which change-action environments acted to raise cognizance of the purpose of English study. For those involved in compulsory foreign language learning, the difficulty of noticing the relevance of study may end up in just going through the motions in the classroom. Activities gave participants opportunities to reflect on beliefs and experiences they brought into the classroom, and reminded them of the importance of acting in the present:

We discuss about English leaning. We know how important leaning English, but we didn’t do actively. So, I think that we should act and it’s necessary for us to talk with our friends about learning English. (Sena, Exploring Messages)

Then, about your past student, I thought he is amazing. I surprised he spoke English well and he has a definite goal. I respect that he makes an effort to achieve the goal and he has a future image clearly. And I thought he thinks things on a global scale … I was inspired by him, so I make an effort to improve my English skills. (Kouhei, NPRM video)

XI Conclusions

This article presented a narrative account of understandings emergent from one spiral of a larger action research project. The findings are heavily situated, coming from two small classes of science and technology undergraduates in the Japanese EFL context. The analysis is also restricted to the subjective understandings and interpretations of myself as teacher–researcher. I have, however, endeavored in the narrative to provide context to the thinking that guided my decisions and understandings emergent over the course of the study.

Reflecting from the perspective of teacher–researcher, action research offered certain advantages as a research approach. The study was instigated because of a gap that I noticed between student and industry expectations for future English use (see Sampson, 2017a). Learners had initially expressed hopes connected more to their transportable identities (Ushioda, 2011). Action research afforded flexibility such that I was able to develop change-action activities engaging with these dimensions in another spiral of the research (Sampson, 2017b). Yet, with my understandings of likely future English use for these young people, I was concurrently motivated to introduce the activities described in the current article. Activities encouraged participants to engage with messages about English they carried with them into the classroom. Analysis revealed that these students were very capable of describing and discussing a range of detailed discourses absorbed from past teachers, family and peer-group members, and society and the media. These ideas had varying motivational and affective resonance for learners at the time they encountered the messages. After students had been encouraged to describe and explore their own understandings, I was then able to build on these insights to offer activities that I hoped might expand their ideas. Over the research, the faculty of change-action activities to foster reflection, share understandings and introduce new information seemed to reduce the discrepancy with industry expectations. Through raising cognizance and adding clarity to the purpose of studies, participants re-connected with the importance of English for their own futures.